How Long Can You Live with Glomerulonephritis

Glomerulonephritis refers to a kind of kidney disorder, in which the glomeruli that help filter wastes and fluid from the blood are damaged. As a result, red blood cells and proteins are lost in blood. Once you are diagnosed with Glomerulonephritis, you may wonder how long you can live with it. In fact, there is no a definite answer to it. Your life span is mainly attributable to your disease condition and the therapy you choose.

Disease condition

Kidneys are responsible for filtering blood and discharge metabolic wastes and excess fluid as well as regulate electrolytes balance.

However, if the kidneys are damaged and excess fluid can not be discharged out of body, the vascular system will be flooded with fluid. As a result, the heart won’t able to keep up with the increased volume. Moreover, the increased blood volume will also collect in lungs making it difficult to breathe, depriving heart and brain of oxgen. Therefore, you will be at high risk of developing heart failure which is the most common death cause of kidney disease.

In addition, the kidneys can not filter out the potassium. If the potassium level in blood is too high, it will cause her heart to beat irregularly.

Moreover, the kidneys can not filter out the urea that body produces, which will result in uremia that can impair heart, brain and other vital organs.

If you have the above the above disease conditions, your life span will be affected significantly.

Therapy

Steriod and immunosuppressive agents are commonly used to treat Glomerulonephritis. However, they can only relieve the symptoms, but not remove the root causes. Your disease still keeps developing progressively and finally leads to Renal Failure.


To stop the disease progression, the treatment controls the symptoms by regulating immune system and restoring the impaired glomeruli. If the glomeruli are restored very well, they will be able to recover the normal function. In this way, your life quality will be improved and you will be able to live as long as common people.